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Don't Blame Climate Change for Extreme Weather

LowDown

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Bjorn Lomborg reviews the recent scientific literature and a report on extreme weather from the IPCC that got little attention to point out that the idea that climate change is responsible for an overall increase in extreme weather is bunk. In other words, he debunks the idea using the standards that warmists claim to hold regarding scientific evidence.

He points out that there is no support for the idea of widespread extreme weather in the scientific literature. The idea is confined to popular literature.

He also makes the following points:

  • Global warming is real.
  • It is partly man made.
  • It will make some things worse and some things better.
  • It will increase temperatures in summer -- more extreme weather -- but also increase temperatures in winter -- less extreme weather. Since more people die of extreme cold than extreme heat 1.4 million lives on the average will be saved by warmer winters.
  • Warmer temperatures will increase rain fall -- more extreme -- but reduce drought -- less extreme.
  • Hurricane wind speeds will increase -- more extreme -- but the number of hurricanes may fall -- less extreme.
  • A paper in the peer reviewed journal Nature showed that extremes in temperature have not increased since 1960.


It is understandable that a lot of well-meaning people, wanting stronger action on global warming, have tried to use the meme of extreme weather to draw attention. But alarmism and panic are rarely the best way to achieve good policies. The argument that global warming generally creates more extreme weather needs to be retired.
 
[*]A paper in the peer reviewed journal Nature showed that extremes in temperature have not increased since 1960.
[/LIST]

Here's a good example of the crap lowdown posts.

This one caught my eye since I read that paper.

It does NOT say extremes in temp have not increased since 1960. It says variability in climate extremes are not likely to increase as temperature rises, (all, of course, in the setting of AGW, which is recognized as fact in the world of science).

The abstract concludes with:

"Many climate models predict that total variability will ultimately decrease under high greenhouse gas concentrations, possibly associated with reductions in sea-ice cover. Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation."

In other words...it's going to be hotter everywhere, not with extreme temps, just higher lows and higher highs.

But the misrepresentation from Lowdown is standard...in all of his spam postings. This is just an example I bothered to call out.
 
To be fair to Lowdown, he's not the one who wrote this article.

Now, I do find it interesting that he takes the word of an adjunct professor at a business school without question.
 
Here's a good example of the crap lowdown posts.

This one caught my eye since I read that paper.

It does NOT say extremes in temp have not increased since 1960. It says variability in climate extremes are not likely to increase as temperature rises, (all, of course, in the setting of AGW, which is recognized as fact in the world of science).

The abstract concludes with:

"Many climate models predict that total variability will ultimately decrease under high greenhouse gas concentrations, possibly associated with reductions in sea-ice cover. Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation."

In other words...it's going to be hotter everywhere, not with extreme temps, just higher lows and higher highs.

But the misrepresentation from Lowdown is standard...in all of his spam postings. This is just an example I bothered to call out.

The part about the lack of an increase in extreme weather since 1960 is Lomborg's interpretation of the paper he cites, and, in fact, it appears to be correct. As the abstract says, "[since 1960] although fluctuations in annual temperature have indeed shown substantial geographical variation over the past few decades, the time-evolving standard deviation of globally averaged temperature anomalies has been stable." In other words, no increase in extremes. So I don't know where the assertion that the paper does not say that comes from. It clearly does say that. The stuff about models is irrelevant. It is correct to say, however, that there will be warmer warm days and warmer cool days rather than more extreme temperatures. That's what the history shows and that's what the models predict, for what that's worth.


To be fair to Lowdown, he's not the one who wrote this article.

Now, I do find it interesting that he takes the word of an adjunct professor at a business school without question.

When one is unable to judge the science for oneself one is liable to get hung up in the credentials of the scientists rather than looking at what they are saying. Lomborg makes several points, all of them appear to be reasonable and correct. It wouldn't matter if he's a janitor for McDonalds, if he's right he's right.

Many lay people have no choice but to make the judgement that since the predominance of scientists support AGW theory then they should also support that theory and it's policy implications. This is a completely rational choice for those people to make. Others look at the science and either accept or reject the claims made by those scientists. In my opinion a skeptical view of the field is more than justified.
 
As the abstract says, "[since 1960] although fluctuations in annual temperature have indeed shown substantial geographical variation over the past few decades, the time-evolving standard deviation of globally averaged temperature anomalies has been stable." In other words, no increase in extremes. So I don't know where the assertion that the paper does not say that comes from. It clearly does say that.

Uh, no. It means the variability is lower. In other words, you get more highs and less lows. So the entire world becomes consistently hot, and its pretty damn hard to get extreme lows when this happens, although the highs dont necessarily get much higher. If you define 'extremes' as temperature records, you can see that high records outnumber low records 2:1.

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/1036/record-high-temperatures-far-outpace-record-lows-across-us
 
Uh, no. It means the variability is lower. In other words, you get more highs and less lows. So the entire world becomes consistently hot, and its pretty damn hard to get extreme lows when this happens, although the highs dont necessarily get much higher. If you define 'extremes' as temperature records, you can see that high records outnumber low records 2:1.

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/1036/record-high-temperatures-far-outpace-record-lows-across-us

So, "less variability" doesn't mean less extremes? Reduce extremes and the standard deviation goes down. Seems to me they are synonymous in this context.
 
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